Yay! It's working!

Wow, I really AM posting more often!!!

(Okay, maybe I copped out by separating one post in to two...)

So, a while back, we went to Cincinnati, OH, for a company get-together Dad's company does each year. While there, we went to a place called Jungle Jim's. Some of you may be familiar with it; we were not. Three words came to mind to adequately describe it:

HO
LY
COW

This place was nuts. It was like Trader Joe's, but on some crazy chemical combination of crack and steroids. (Note: I do NOT support the consumption of this combination. Sure, there are some nice benefits, but man do the drawbacks kick you...hard....)

So this place has isles and isles of food stuffs. Foods, beverages, toys...lots of stuff. But the cool thing, and kind of their shtick, is that it's all organized by country. So you can find all kinds of teas, crumpets, Robin Hood, and things of that ilk in the English isle. Wander in to the German isle and you'll find plum butter, Bavarian mustard, and silly hats. There are isles for everything. Mexican, Irish, Australian, Papau New Guinea...everything! Okay, that last one may not exist. But if any store in America had a Papau New Guinea isle, it would be Jungle Jim's.

In addition to all of that, they have....beer. Lots and lots of beer. International beer, domestic microbrews, and everything in between. THIS was like Heaven on Earth for me. Due to financial constraints, I kept myself to only purchasing 6 internationals, and plan on talking about each of them on here. This is partially so I can have a reference for myself, when purchasing other beers in the future, partially for my friends and family who also enjoy a nice yeasty beverage, and partially to get these bottles off of my desk, that have been sitting here JUST waiting for me to review them. I need to clean this place up, so, I review.

So the first one that I'll be talking about is Ayinger's Ur-Weisse. Ayinger Ur-Weisse is an old-fashioned wheat with some fine roasted malt to give it more color and flavor than golden hefe- weisse. It has an immense crown of lovely foam held proudly above a robe of translucent amber. On the palate, malt and yeast predominate, with a delicious balance of fruit and bread-like yeast. The taste is complex, with suggestions of soft fruit, apple, and, in the finish, perhaps, even cloves.

Confession: I didn't really write all of that in the previous paragraph. It was copied from here. But it sounded good, right? In my own words, I'd say...ditto! Seriously though, it was a great wheat beer. It was a bit of a darker wheat, but not heavy tasting. It was a bit heavier than a lot of hefeweizen's, but still made for a fantastic summer brew. I can see what they mean in the description above by "bread-like yeast"; while I wouldn't say it tasted like homemade bread, I can see the comparison. It was just a nice, medium-bodied, darker (though not as dark as the double bock I'm going to review next) wheat beer, that would go really well with anything you grill, especially chicken or sausages of some sort (brats, obviously - der.). So, go get one (if you can find it)! It tastes kind of, a little bit, sorta like bread!